First off, this is the ionian crest. Attachment 631637 Which Karma has written literally all over her. Her fans and clothing have the same colors and gems that the crest has.

Second, look at Syndra, she doesn't look Ionian at all, and nor do a few others Attachment 631638

Yep, even her black/white/red theme was clearly inspired by the Ionian crest. Which if you look at, looks a bit like yin and yang too. She ALREADY was the representation of Ionia, and I find it kind of hilarious that in order to make her look more Ionian, they actually made her look more generic and went with the "this character is Ionian because they have asian looking structures in the background of their splash art" thing they seem to be doing recently. Syndra is the best example.

I think they made her 'glow' a little too much in her new skin, her eyes, her gems and her hands/limbs glow and there's patterns on her sleeves and her hands and all that stuff, it's like they are literally trying to say HEY SHE JUST CHARGED HERSELF and to point that out they made her into a jack-a-lantern.

Well, if someone who loves current Karma, and has access to the rework repeatedly says "I'll miss Karma", you can be pretty sure the changes to her abilities will be significant. I am bracing myself for the final blow, personally. Soon, she will be gone >.<
T.T

TL;DR: Responding to the red posts with how I view things. Not really digging where they've gone with Karma, and disregarding that, not entirely sure they were even successful at doing what they've stated was their goals with Karma. However, the why's of it are really more important than this pretty much worthless TL;DR statement, and the why's are below.

Will freely admit I haven't read all 215 pages of this thread, so I'm certain much of what I say will say has been said already. But after two days of mulling it over, I still feel the need to make my statements regarding the issue, regardless of whether or not they'll just be lost in the hundreds of pages. Also, I might jump around a bit and apologize for any spelling/grammatical errors. I work nights normally, and it's well past the time I usually go to sleep. So fairly tired.

As I go through the various red posts, I start to fear for Karma. I understand the need for an update, both in terms of graphics and gameplay. Her kit, although fun and unique, wasn't really well suited for any kind of consistent success in a competitive arena. If you're just playing a game for fun (and solely fun), she's definitely worth it. If you only find fun in victory, she's borderline worthless. Unfortunately, due to the nature of this game, that means that the latter of those two is significantly more common than the former.

So, I have no qualms with her kit being remade in addition to the visual update, because from a business perspective, it's definitely an investment that could pay off, especially once you make a skin of hers limited edition (bound to drive sales up quite a bit, even if it's free to a portion of the populace).

However, the question marks pop up immediately after reading the first post. I'm not sure if it's just poorly worded, but by opening with saying "But before we dig into it, there’s something you should probably know first," it's kind of like saying "We know we're going to anger many of you, we get that. But here, let's try to appease you first with this candy. It's free!" Not a good tone to set for the thread, and I feel was the first stumbling block that a bunch of Karma fans ran into. It feels like you knew that there was going to be backlash from her "two fans" (btw, really bad pun. I always applaud the attempt of using a pun, but this one is not really well suited based on how the rest of the red posts have been made. Again, poor tone set throughout.), but didn't think it mattered enough.

In addition to that, instead of leaving it as her default skin (and it's already thematically significantly different from her current default, which is ok), it was stated that you're taking a new skin, making that her default, and giving us "vintage" Karma like you're doing us a favor. Again, it kind of makes Karma fans feel as if you're again stating "Hey, we know you won't like it, but you'll just have to live it. Here, have some candy, it's free!" It may not be your intent, but even after re-reading it multiple times, I just can't get anything else out of it.

However, if you disregard the tone of the announcement of the two skins, the skins themselves are really a slap in the face. I understand the need for sexy skins, I do. I'm a guy, I like fanservice. Won't deny it. There's plenty of skins I've bought because they were sexy. However, there's a difference between optional skins being sexy, and the default skin being sexy. For certain champions, it's not an issue. Ahri, Elise, Miss Fortune, etc, it's fine. Even others that don't make a mention of being somewhat of a seductress, if their lore doesn't contradict it, that's fine. Others, it doesn't work for, and ironically, those are some of my favorite champions to play.

Leona, Quinn, Diana, Irelia, Karma, Kayle, Lulu, Riven, Tristana, Vi (Leona and Vi are arguably my two favorite champions), none of their default skins are really what I would call sexy. Most of them easily fulfill the beautiful description, some have outfits that accentuate body parts (but not to an excessive degree), others are well drawn but I won't call beautiful because it makes me feel like I'm a pedo for doing so. Again, make sexy skins for any of those (though again, some are more questionable due to how old they appear to be, even if they are older in actuality), but by making their defaults a sexier version, it kind of goes against their perceived personalities. The "Vintage" Karma skin is fine (though it's significantly different from her current default, as she's more of a politician that fights now instead of a warrior who happens to be a politician. But that seems to be what you're going for, so it works), but the fact that it won't be her default, and that a new sexier version is going to be her default, is not really helping your case that you're trying to evolve her rather than change her. Unless by evolve you mean make her more worldly, and if so, she'll probably get more action with her new default than her "Vintage" skin. I'm sure you'll understand the implication of that last sentence. And for those who say the new version isn't that sexy, it is for Karma. Even with her two optional skins, the one she shows the most skin in, sun goddess, is still extremely demure in comparison to other sexy skins. With the new default, one could say the significant amount of leg shown as well as the cut of her top (very much teasing some of her breasts when looked at from the side) are a significant departure from that. However, and I must emphasize this, I have no issues with her new default skin aside from it being her default skin. Give her a sexy skin, that's fine, just don't make it her default.

Later on when it's mentioned that fans are the only price being paid (red post 18), you seem to be missing that it's not the only thing being paid. Personality, outfit, weaponry, everything is changing. It's not just the removal of her fans. Or, were you again using the terrible pun, and saying that losing the players who like her as she is is the only price being paid? Because if losing the players who currently like her is the only price to make a new champion that more people will like, you are absolutely correct in your assessment. She will be more popular. She just won't be Karma. As a sidenote, this is one reason why your pun was terribly used. It opens up avenues of bleh thought processes that I would rather remain closed, and prefer to be allowed to stayed hesitantly hopeful that she has evolved rather than been completely changed.

Past that, I actually think the emphasis on dragons is a great idea. I do. It's part of the Ionian crest, and the only Ionian (specifically Ionian, not someone who's allied with them or happens to live there) champion that I can find a dragon on is Lee Sin, and that's probably more a reference to Bruce Lee (as it is his Dragon Fist skin) than it is to Ionia. My problem is that it doesn't look like she has dragons. When I first saw the image, I thought it was just swirls that were a very poorly drawn yin-yang symbol, then after reading some posts looked again, this time seeing birds (IronStylus must be taking over my mind or something >.<). After actually zooming in massively using one particular angle (and not the others), I can kind of see them being dragons, but it's still not really definitive, and I would never have guessed they were dragons without reading the posts.

Probably my biggest qualm overall is just the complete change in personality focus. I actually really like RiotAmes' explanation. I am perfectly ok with that being the route being taken. I just don't see his explanation being carried out in any one else's post. I think that being less passive and having more conviction to act is fine, I even think that updating her dress to more of a battlegarb with pants and vest/coat thingy is fine. Not using fans as her primary weapon is fine (though as mentioned in the post by Voidophile, they really should have been left on her belt or elsewhere). My issue is that she has to be "badass." No. Just no. This, by far, is where the divide has been caused. To quote Inigo Montoya, "You keep using that word. I do not think it means what you think it means." The degree to which you are pushing this side of her completely destroys everything about her by itself. The rest doesn't help, but it's understandable and workaround-able (not sure that's even a word, but going with it).

Karma is all about balance. It has been mentioned time and time and time again, by fans, by riot, by lore, by whatever you can find. She is the political leader that will also fight. She's just as comfortable at a political summit as she is on the battlefield. By saying that you're "evolving" her personality to being more battle-oriented, and then saying that she doesn't need her fans because she is becoming more enlightened, is a massive oxymoron. Spiritually speaking, if she was becoming more enlightened, she would see that what is here in the world is all relative, and in the long run, meaningless. There are very few religions that are centered solely on things in this world, and even the more warlike religions are mostly due to appeasing their gods, not themselves. So if she is becoming more enlightened, why wouldn't she become even less combat oriented? Not that she would shirk her duties, but saying she's been affected by the war and that it's taking a toll on her, thus making her more tenacious in battle, leveling even more power to bear, then turning around and saying she is becoming more enlightened and has an indomitable spirit (which is cracking, obviously, by her completely changing herself, and thus not indomitable), I'm not really seeing where you're going. It's like your trying to take oil and water, mix them, and then ignoring science and expecting them to mingle together in a perfect balance rather than constantly trying to separate from each other due to their compositions.

So, while before she was for all intents and purposes a badass politician (be honest, if you saw any politician decide to take up MMA and be successful, you'd call him/her a badass), that's not badass enough. Now she has to be a badass action star. It's not acceptable that she is a solid rock, fighting for her people in every conceivable battlefield (both the League and other political arenas), never breaking. She has to be the person running everywhere, kicking ass and taking names. Maybe it really is just the league of Draven, and all champions have to be showman executioners.

In the end, I can't argue with what you're doing, I really can't. I don't agree with it, but I can't argue with it. From the only perspective that really matters (you are a business), you can't really do anything else. If you want her to be more popular, you have to gut her, you have to remake her entirely. If you want her to be more popular, you can't keep her what she is. And thus, you have to make her more desirable (in more ways than one, which is the only justification I can see for her new default skin).

All I ask, is that you don't try to tell us that she's still Karma. Because what you've described thus far isn't her. It's not an evolved her. It's not a upgraded her. It's a new person with an old name. And if she was enlightened before, you're pretty much saying now that she wasn't. Because if she was, she wouldn't have been so completely wrong in terms of personality that you felt the need to gut her. But again, it's a business, and you need to make money.

I will remain hesitantly hopeful (barely, this thread hasn't helped at all, but I'm trying), and hope that the new lore (once released) and the PBE version that goes up won't confirm most of my fears. I won't say I'm a die-hard Karma fan, but she's a very enjoyable champ with a unique feel to her. And it saddens me to see her go.

I'm now going to quote this post with every bump. I completely agree with pretty much everything, especially about the tone of the red posts, and that the new design/personality/direction is just confusing and contradicting in some places.

I'd rather they just admit they scrapped Karma and replaced her with something else, instead of trying to pass this off as "character development" to appease the fans, because it's just not believable. If the people at Riot thought this was believable/good/realistic character development they definitely need new designers and writers.